Stuart Brereton

I recently shot a short drama this way. We had the ground glass marked with tape to a 2.35 AR. We transferred the whole s16 neg area, and it will be letterboxed in post. There were no particular problems that we had. In fact the only issue was with the framing chart that I shot at the head of the first roll. Despite taking time to set it up properly, in TK the chart appeared to be slightly dutched. However, all the footage after the chart was correctly oriented. I've no idea what caused it, so put it down to human error (mine). I considered shooting anamorphic 16mm, but the difficulty in obtaining matched sets of lenses at an affordable price makes the tiny gain in neg area over s16 matted to 2.35 pointless. In addition, anamorphic 16mm is not a familiar format for many people which can cause problems in post (Adam Frisch has some horror stories to tell about this....)

I'll second that. I never really felt comfortable with it until other people started to refer to me as a DP.

I sympathise with the dislike of over-powerful and aggressive unions, but from a British point of view, there is a lot to be said in favor of a union with some 'cohones'...

You may get more responses if you ask again in the Production Sound forum. It's at the bottom of the main forum list underneath the Library & Support sections.

24 use a 10,000 lumen projector for their plates. That's a serious piece of kit, the sort of thing used for conferences and other large events. You may get enough exposure from a smaller projector of 3-4000 lumens. You just need to test it first. A dSLR set to 1/50 sec & 500asa will give you a reference to work from.

I have the recent 2 disc DVD release. Nothing wrong with the transfer at all, very sharp indeed.

I did a price comparison a couple of years ago and found that s16 was indeed cheaper as long as I shot less than 10 rolls of stock. After that, HD got progressively cheaper.

I've seen Nets fixed with clear nail polish. It's not a quick solution, as the polish take time to dry. Removing them just requires some Acetone or Grain Alcohol.

Pulp Fiction was shot on 35mm, by Andrzej Sekula, who also shot Reservoir Dogs. 5245 is Sekula's favorite stock, and he apparently would use it all the time, even for night interiors. I worked with a sound recordist a few years back who had worked on Hackers. He remembered both cast & crew complaining about the heat from the huge amount of light that Sekula was using in order to shoot on 50D stock.

Within reason, yes. A 4'x3' softbox is pretty much the same no matter who makes it. Obviously, you'd want to check the fit before you spend a lot of money on a speedring

I had my adapters made by a machinist. They weren't cheap, but less than buying a speedring from Chimera. I would imagine that the heads themselves just need a new AC cable and a 240v lamp to run over here (or in Australia) I know that's all that's required for the Photoflex version.

I have three amvona softboxes, and I'm very happy with them. considering how little they cost from ebay, the quality is amazing. The universal speedring is virtually useless, however. The speedring comes in two parts. The inner ring is designed for flash units, and probably isn't good for anything else. The outer ring, which the softbox attaches to, may fit some lamps as is, but you're almost certainly going to have to get some thing made. I had some adaptors made to fit my Arri Fresnels. The Tungsten lighting kits they sell are based around a copy of the Photoflex Starlite heads, and take the same 1k tubular lamps. They're really only designed to be used with a softbox, as they have no reflector or lens system.

Just got back from TK. The film was tranferred on a Shadow telecine to digibeta. I managed to get some screengrabs from a mini-DV copy of the rushes. The image quality has suffered because of the DV compression, but they're not too bad. This was also the first time I've shot the new Kodak 50D (7201) I rated it at 32asa, and the results are just beautiful. Really, really crisp and very sharp. I'd love to shoot more on this stock.

A backlight is positioned directly behind the subject, hence the name. A kicker is generally positioned behind and off to one side. It's also sometimes called a 3/4 backlight.

Darius Khondji says in an interview in 'New Cinematographers' that he didn't flash the neg at all, because he didn't like using the Panaflasher, as he doesn't think it's as good as a Varicon.

Book yourself a deep tissue massage for the end of every shooting week, and a visit to the osteopath/chiropractor of your choice for the end of the shoot. I'm not being glib. I did a 12 twelve week reality show a few years back, and this was what got me through it.

Thanks, the St. Louis reference helped me find it. It was the Pruitt Igoe project, demolished in '72. I think the shots of tenements are from New York. I'm positive I saw very similar locations used in 'Wolfen' which had a New York setting.

Airstar (airstar-light.com) are one manufacturer of these balloons. They come in varying sizes and are available with tungsten or hmi lamps in them. Lee Lighting have their own version, called the Leelium balloon. I'm sure there are others as well. They're not cheap, that why I suggested bouncing light off a weather balloon as a budget alternative, however, stacked up against the cost of hiring a condor, they might be a viable alternative.

Have you considered hiring a largish white helium weather balloon and bouncing one or more of the pars off it? Or do you want your 'moonlight' more directional?

I think the biggest lamps they have are 1kw. Small filament tungsten lamps don't need much time to heat up. You don't want the flash too quick anyway, or it starts to look like a strobe.

I would gel a 1k with 1/2 ctb and place it and a 4x4 beadboard outside the window of the location. Just flash the lamp a few times in an irregular pattern, bouncing the light from the lamp off the beadboard into the room. If you prefer a harder look, use the lamp directly. With the right Sound fx, you'll sell the illusion quite convincingly.

My advice would be to look at back issues of American Cinematographer, and see how some of the big sets featured there are lit, then adapt those approaches to your own film/budget.

I used a Canon EOS 10D for these pictures. The framings are not necessarily anything like the actual shots, more of a guide, really. One thing I've found myself doing is becoming more reliant on the stills camera, to the detriment of the images. I'm getting so involved in taking a meter reading, then converting it to a setting the 10D can use, then getting a still, then examining it, that I've stopped evaluating the scene by eye. Instead of thinking about my exposures, I'm just looking at the stills. It's not a very disciplined way of working, so I think next time I might leave the camera at home. We wrapped tonight after a week of shooting, but it seems longer. Working with a mostly student crew is fun, but it takes a lot out of you, as you can't take their knowledge or ability for granted, and everything takes much longer to happen than it normally would. Still, it was a good shoot, and hopefully will be a good film. We TK next monday, so with any luck I'll have some actual screengrabs to post.

Just watched this again, after a gap of about 12 years(!) It's better than I remembered, but it's never going to be a film I rave about. There were a couple of locations that I wondered if anyone had details of. Early on, there are some shots of the New York skyline. Right after them, there are shots of derelict tenement buildings and some aerials of huge apartment blocks, which are then shown being demolished. I've always assumed them to be shots of the housing projects in the Bronx. Does anyone know for sure? Thanks.

First sensible thing you've said ;-) FWIW, I agree that Morgan was wrong to criticize America for the actions of its' government. He made sweeping assertions about American foreign policy, which although partially justified, really had nothing to do with the documentary. You, like a lot of Americans, are fed up with being painted as the bad guys because of what George W. gets up to, and wanted to defend yourself and your country. All understandable. However, it very quickly degenerated into a slanging match, and those of us who were hoping to learn something about the programme were left in the middle. This forum is unmoderated because people are supposed to show restraint and forethought in their posts. You gave us all a history lesson in the Manhattan Project and the bombing of Japan, which might be interesting, but IS NOT relevant!